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Ch. 7: Inception On Steriods
Back to Arheled ' Chapter Seven ' ' Level in Level ' The craziest landscape he had ever seen rose about him. If you could call it a landscape. After he had gazed for a while he made out city buildings and houses, jutting all different angles from a jumbled tossing of stone crags, as if the earth underneath a city had erupted and risen in revolution until it turned town into mountain range, swallowing houses and leaving buildings in the weirdest places. The stone was a delicious, smooth pink, like the inside of a shell, and plants and mosses and scattered trees splashed the jumbled crags with a vibrant, almost luminous green. The sky overhead was pale blue, streaked with clouds of diving fire, burning yellow and orange and deep red like the best sunset imaginable. “An interesting place you have here, I must say.” Arheled remarked. He stood with folded arms next to Forest, the white cloak lifting in the faint wind. “I’ve never been here.” said Forest. Arheled gave him a humerous stare. “A strange thing for you to say, in this place,” he said, “but it is seldom one can recognize a thing that never comes out before the conscious eyes, to be there studied and puzzled at like anything else.” “Have I seen this in my dreams? Am I dreaming now?” “No, Forest, at the moment you are wide awake.” said Arheled. “So am I (but indeed, such sleep as I take you would never recognise as such, and think me still wakeful when in needed rest I was wandering distantly). But you do know this place; you know it very well, for you are inside of it all of your life.” Forest didn’t understand, but he followed Arheled in silence. They were meeting people now, queer people in antique styles of clothing reminiscent of seventeenth-century Englishmen, and every one of them bore a sword. Great brown cloaks swirled about them. The paths that wound over the colorful mountains were narrow, and Arheled and Forest had to stand aside to let them pass. They made no greeting, only glanced sidelong at the pair and kept on in their way. “Do not speak to them.” said Arheled. “If they realize we do not belong here, they will attack us.” “Who are they?” “Ah, Forest, if you don’t know the answer, then how can I explain it to you? It is enough that you elude their notice.” “Can I be invisible to them?” “That’s a laughable thought. Can the sun be invisible to the earth it illumines? We must make sure it remains a cloudy day.” “Where are we going?” said Forest as they mounted up a long broken ridge. The pink stone was overlaid by a fine close turf of innumerable tiny green flowers. Arheled pointed to a huge skyscraper that projected at a 50-degree angle from the side of a jutting crag. “The levels of this place are perilous,” he said, “but the secret we hunt is locked at the very bottom. We must descend, Forest.” “What are we looking for?” “A photo album.” answered Arheled enigmatically. “Or a casket. Or a vial. I have no idea what it will look like; only what it is.” “Then how will we know it?” Arheled chuckled grimly. “Oh, that’s easy. It’s the thing most closely guarded.” They ascended a long way through the broken but beautiful country. Short pitch pines stooped and scrambled about the shell-hued rocks, their deep green needles spangled with honey-brown cones. Blueberry bushes, laden with cerulean fruit the size of the cones, formed the understory. Here and there they passed the remains of some toppled house or half-swallowed skyscraper embedded in the rock. “This place was once an urban landscape, full of offices and square, plain, metal and concrete buildings filled with glass, a landscape in every way dull, modern and thoroughly boring, and the people pouring through it wore modern jeans and suits.” said Arheled. A soldier clanked by in Spanish plate armour, and his stare was so long and suspicious he came to a halt. Arheled paid him no heed, and he moved on. “What happened to it?” “I began to call.” said Arheled. “My calls convulsed the land as it tried to absorb them, until the dreams I was sending upheaved all save traces of that normal ugly mindset that everyone else has; everyone else looks inside like a city, and usually the seamier parts thereof. For good or ill this land is changed forever.” Two cloaked brigands whipped out swords and harquebuses, but Arheled lifted one hand and they toppled over like ninepins and lay still. “Can they kill us, Arheled?” “Nothing can ‘kill’ Arheled.” he answered. “You see, a human’s essence is himself as alive, body and soul; with no body, his essence is halved, it is not whole. I am not like that. I do not ‘die’.” “Are you an angel?” “An angel is a spirit, Forest,” he replied. “And a spirit is an intellectual substance, devoid of matter. It is not so with me. My essence is commingled with matter, but not as your body; if that matter is wrecked, my essence is not sundered. So, no, Arheled cannot be killed. Only destroyed.” “But if you’re not half material like we are…” '' How can you suffer destruction?'' “The mind is capable of being broken, Forest. Even those beings who are entirely mind can so be. Not insane; the farther above the human the mind stands, the less vulnerable it becomes, for insanity is partly a result of the body. And the angelic-level intelligences are too powerful to warp out of sanity, even if they fall. But to break, to drift, sane but shattered, without volition or strength, so that merely to exist is slow torment; that is what happens when weaker spirits are eaten by stronger. They are destroyed. And to such, Forest, is Arheled vulnerable.” “But where are we?” “Standing on the lawn of Wintergreen Island, my hand on your eyes.” said Arheled. Forest looked all around them. “I’m like Brooke? A ghost?” They reached a sort of level. Dark against the bright sky in front rose the tilted building. “How can you be a ghost, when you are inside your own self?” Arheled said to him. Forest felt a sudden great stillness fall over that strange country. The distant mantled figures that were passing across the farther slopes all halted, and as one they slowly turned to stare up at Forest and Arheled. “We’re inside me?” said Forest. “Your mind, yes. Inside one level of your soul. We hunt what the Enemy sealed up inside you so long ago.” They walked faster toward the diagonal doorways in the side of the great building. The crags around seemed to crawl with charging figures of running men, all converging on them. “But how do we get there?” panted Forest as they broke into a run. Arrows began to sail like bats in the fiery sky, falling short, but slowly growing closer. The great building, half swallowed by the jutting crag they were on, projected far out over the canyons beneath. The doorway was at an angle so steep they stepped over the side instead of the threshold. The moment they did so gravity shifted. The building was upright now. Outside the windows, however, the ground and the very sky were tilted and slanting downward. Forest looked quickly around. Ivy grew over the rotting skulls of computers with shattered screens—computers of a rather obsolete model, Pentiums with big monitors and glass screens—and dust and soil caked their leaves, fallen from the floors above. The glass had long since broken in the windows. Roots dangled from the ceiling. Blue fire flashed in every window. A pounding of wordless feet grew audible, and into empty windows and gaping doors a host of rabble climbed. Some looked like peasant farmers, some like soldiers in chain mail or plate armour; others wore the tunics of prosperous merchants, rich and intricate. And from every hand extended blades of blue fire. “Down!” barked Arheled. The ancient floor broke under their feet. So did the floors below it. Then there were no floors, only a shaft cut straight down into living rock, and they all fell unimpeded, bits of cement and wet rotten wood floating lazily in the air around them, falling at the same speed as they. As he spun with his fall, Forest caught glimpses of their foes, diving head foremost down above them, swords of blue fire held before them. Abruptly he was no longer falling. Arheled had seized a projecting iron bar with one hand and Forest with the other, pressing flat against the side. There was no tremendous jolt as there should have been. The medieval skydivers gave a howl of rage as they fell impotently by, and plunged on into the depths. “It will take them some time to stop, and more time to climb up to here.” said Arheled. “Of course, time is funny down here. Hours of action can be packed into ten minutes of dreaming, or an adventure half an hour long takes half the night to play out.” He launched himself across the shaft at a yawning hole on that side, landing with incredible ease, considering his burden. Forest wobbled when he stood. “If this is my own mind,” he said, “why is it trying to kill us?” “This is the part of your mind you never look into, any more than you can see through the back of your own head.” “But if it is me, I should control them.” Arheled hurried down the round tunnel, pulling Forest with him. “Can you control your dreams? Can you steer your own passage through the worlds your mind is weaving, or command the shapes of people that walk within those dreams? Or are you tossed helplessly, acting your role in whatever stage it made for you, often not even remembering that you are only in a dream?” They raced through a honeycomb of crossing twisting tunnels, Arheled giving a dim blue light that made them eerily like the caves of Torech Ungol. There was no dripstone, although the walls gleamed with damp. “The ones chasing us are no more subject to your will than are the dreams from which they spring. They are how your undermind sees the people it has met, and the countless faces it has seen: you can only flee or fight them, for they will only fight you.” They were going down now, always down. Arheled seemed to know exactly where to go, but Forest was hopelessly lost. He saw formless glimpses in the dim shadows of the intersecting rooms, glimpses of shapes both unrecognizable and terrifying; and the shapes saw them. Beyond the glow of Arheled Forest began to see queer gleams of evil brilliance, and pale spots like eyes, and from behind them came a sound as of a thousand crawling hunters. “What happens if I’m killed?” he called. “You wake up.” said Arheled. “And then we have to do this all over again. It would be much less easy. Your mind is aware of intruders now, and all the phantoms and terrors, perceptions and conceptions, dreams and nightmares, that populate your overmind and undermind, will attack.” Abruptly they came to what looked like a door, except it was set into the floor like a trap. Arheled turned and sent a blinding blue light behind them; all sorts of squeals and screeches followed. Then reaching down he turned the knob. The door fell upward as if swinging open, and white daylight poured in. Forest and Arheled stepped forward, Forest half expecting a fall. Instead he swung in a half circle downward, to stumble forward onto thick grass. Behind him the door was now upright, and pulling it shut Arheled locked it with a silver key from his pocket. They stood upon the floor of a weird and beautiful forest, somehow greener and more vivid than forests in the real world could ever be. Laurel grew in blooming clusters of white edged with pink among darkest green, out of beds of new-green fern that seemed luminous, it was so green. Short young hemlock the hue of dark emerald fringed the laurel gardens, as they seemed, too beautiful to have grown randomly. “Where are the buildings?” said Forest. “Your imagination was too powerful for them.” Arheled replied. “The dull cities the teachers and parents built in it, crumbled and fell when I began to send the dreams, and you planted it anew in a world they cannot conquer.” They marched through the forest for some time. It shifted and changed every other step, as it seemed, as if they were crossing dimensionally hidden woods within woods, constantly changing topography and flora One moment they stood in a wood of graceful gray beech, glowing green in sunlight of early gold. A step forward and they were pacing across a glade of huge low-limbed red maples, speckling the ground with fire from scarlet leaves. Another step and they were in a noon forest of oak and low blueberry and deep moss. And so it went, till Forest was first dazzled and then numbed. One thing the varied woods all had in common, however: they were Northern woods, Northern landscapes, all from New England: there was no jungle terrain or tropical luxuriance, nor anything from the other lands of the US. “Your imagination is populated with what it knows.” said Arheled as they walked into a gloomy swamp very like the one he had named Featherlock. “You are Forest, but only the forests of the North, where the Road returns.” “Those—people.” said Forest. “Where are they?” “Oh, we don’t have to worry about people here.” said Arheled wryly. “If only. No, the protections of this place are far more difficult.” They entered a snowy hemlock wood, and Forest, though he had expected to start shivering, didn’t feel the cold at all. Arheled was looking sharply about, as if seeing road signs invisible to Forest. Then he took a step sideways, seizing Forest so tightly Forest had no choice but to do the same; and then leaped one step back. A frozen winter swamp flickered before them for an instant, changing at once to a familiar scene: the eerie peat-swamp valley of Rugg Brook, and it was just as he had first seen it. The season was early summer, a cool dry day. But the water of the brook that splashed beside the road was no longer red-brown, but a deep ancient red. “We wait here.” said Arheled. “For what do we wait?” The face of Arheled grew grim. “You always were fascinated by the riddle-speech of Bilbo,” he said softly, “and I hope that it is still that way.” A powerful wind stirred far in the distance. “He felt our coming, the guardian of this place; and he would find us however far we fled. I cannot help you here, Forest, as I did when you spoke to the King of the Dead; you must answer him yourself, of your own knowledge, for unless you defeat him in words we can go no farther.” “But what is he??” cried Forest, as the wind rose to a great roar, drawing ever closer. Far off yet, they saw the sky suddenly darkening with gray, and the violent silver-green of leaves suddenly blown inside-out transfigured the canopy. “His knowledge is born out of yours.” Arheled murmered, his voice fainter as he faded into the trees, and then the roar drowned it, and he was gone. Forest looked down and found the white cloak was round him now, hanging heavy and motionless, unstirred by the wind that rose around him. Then a wall of torn leaves and small limbs filled the slate-grey sky. The trees groaned and bent, all their limbs roaring at once as they bowed and streamed away, and a solid wave of whirring air smote and broke upon Forest; but it could not move him, planted like an old tree in the graveled road, and splitting on him passed him by. Trees exploded in fire, sending burning shards of wood around and upon him; but the white cloak quenched all sparks to touch it, and Forest was not harmed. With a whirling motion, huge wings like hills descended from above, lowering an immense object underneath them. It was long and sinuous, but webbed like some great cocoon had encased it, trailing streamers of web below it. It had twenty jointed legs, and each leg had steel whips that probed and lashed of themselves. But the wings were a dragon’s, and the triple head was a dragon’s, all three heads moving as one. The whiskered jaws each trailed beards, long and thick as a dwarf’s, and on every face was a long and sarcastic smile. With a boom that shook the ground the Worm landed in the clearing of burnt trees he had made, and looked upon the eyes of Forest. And Forest looked back without effect. '' “Where is the other?” '' said the Winged Worm. “I am no other than myself.” said Forest. '' “That cloak is not your own. There were two. Where is the other?”'' “I am alone here.” The Worm’s left head turned from side to side. As before, all three heads spoke as one.'' “What do you seek down inside your own self? The other has left; but we know he was here. Speak, before I turn your eyes back outward.” '' “I seek my full self.” said Forest. The centermost head nodded, slowly. “I will ask.” the three heads said.'' “You must answer whatever I ask. But we have knowledge you have no comprehension of, and you have not the skill to fence with us.” '' “I will answer, nevertheless.” '' “What is the Road?” '' “The Road is the command that weaves together the fabric of the surface of the world that once was, unshifting and immobile, though the very Universe shift around it.” '' “Who are the ones that walk upon the Road?”'' “Those who have leave.” '' “There is a kind that can unmake the Road. What?” '' Forest gulped, but his face remained still. “The feet of the Dead can break apart the manifestation of the Road that touches the Earth between its’ Returnings.” '' “Why does the Road walk when it has not yet returned, and what is it like?” '' “The Road touches the living earth in one place at all times, that its’ Warden may have it by him as he tends the Graves of Arheled in the mountains of the North Gate. It is in form like a broad cobbled way winding through the mountains, and this form can be sent to any place the Warden pleases.” '' “If it walks always there, then why must it come here, and why must it return?” '' “It must return to Temple Fell every hundred years, in order to pull the wandering Earth back underneath it. It must come to Temple Fell, because that is the heart of the place that was broken off and wrought into the New Lands in the bending of the world.” “Whence'' ''came the place that was broken from the old, and how great is the extent thereof?” '' '' ''“When Arda was made round, Middle-earth was broken apart in the bending of it backward, and the homeland of those ancient ones, ''venda '' with hair of gold and silver, was pulled over the new seas and fused in the rising of the new lands, into their eastern shore. Here upon the Temple Fell was the growing of the Gems, and the founding of the Swords. The land that was taken extends up from the Lord of the Moon to the Dwarf-halls of Colebrook, and its’ line runs down the Hall Meadow valley and the fractured gorge of the Naugatuck River until it meets Waterbury, and thence in a line to the Lord of the Moon who forms the south border, and north up the Flat Valley along the line of the basalt fissures, which erupted along the seam of the welding.” ''“What is the name of the Herald?” '' “The name of the Herald, like the head of the Herald, is hidden from view; but by Men he is named Orion, and Menelmacar, and the Warlock.” '' “When the Herald walks, whence will he come?” '' “The Herald will not walk, for Daslenga will bear him. He will come from the direction of the star named Herald.” '' “Tell me the knowledge of the nature of evil.” '' “Evil is the wreckage and the turning of the good; it has no nature, it is only a ruin of what began well, or an absence of what ought to be there, as dark is only that which is not yet filled by light.” “And yet darkness can exclude the light.” “Only if it is held in place by the will of a being who does not desire light.” “Then who, if you have knowledge, is the Lord of the Darkness?” “He who began as the Lord of all things Seen: the One who Arises in Might.” “What is your true name?” Forest looked upon the three heads coldly. “The same as thine,” he said in a voice as flat as death, “for thou art inside me.” “Dost thou know the answer?” “You must take my word for it that I do.” “Who is thy father? Who is thy mother? Who is thy sister?” “My father is light and my mother is lake, and my sister is a fortress, for fair is she.” “Where is the place of thy own dying?” Forest stepped forward. “You have asked enough questions, Worm,” he said. “Now answer mine. Will you stand aside—now?” The Worm bent all sox eyes upon him. Deep, dark and treacherous, full of dragon-spell, Forest read in them the answer to the last question. The cloak of Arheled whipped forward in his hands. He did not remember doffing it. His aim was true. Over the three mouths it clamped, just as those mouths belched fire; and beaten back inside it, the fire seethed and boiled, and with a boom and splatter the Worm’s insides burst. His fire flowed out upon the gravel and hardened into gold, and he lay dead, all three heads limp. Arheled pinned his cloak about him once again. There was approval in his glance. “You are gaining wisdom, Forest.” he said. “Come, the way is open. Now all our skill is needed.” Across the road there was now fading into substance a huge castle wall, built of stones so ancient the mortar had outlasted them, and stood up in ridges from the joints in the pitted and eroded surface. Gates of red metal stood shut, and before them, still dim as ghosts, were coming into focus the forms of armoured men. Towers lifted vague spires above the gate-arch, and behind them, replacing the trees, an immense donjon. “Before they fully come!” hissed Arheled, and dived into the laurels. Forest followed. Their clothes began to change hue, until they blended perfectly. In front of them, the guardsmen were now nearly solid. Then there was a ripple as in a pond, and the castle stood entire before them. Arheled wormed with an almost fluid slowness to the edge of the brush. Forest followed, finding it almost impossible to imitate Arheled, especially as he could barely see him. He peered out at the guard, and nearly gasped. They were not human. Out of the flamboyant scarlet armour projected the faces of dogs, canine yet rational, their cold eyes shifting constantly, their dreadful sharp noses sniffing. They bore great two-handed claymores five feet long, drawn, resting on the ground. Arheled opened a bag and poured a silvery dust out of it. It hung in the air like mist. Then he exhaled, a long slow breath, and the glittering cloud rose and faded, making for the gate. “Watch.” he whispered. Suddenly the dog-men began to sneeze, continuously. Arheled and Forest crept out of the laurels and moved, in a steady slow motion, bent double across the open. Grass grew there, and looking down at his feet Forest saw his garments now mimicked the grass perfectly. They reached the wall. Gripping the protruding mortar Arheled began to climb, and Forest with some difficulty found himself doing the same. The joints made good handholds, but poor footholds. Forest in consequence had exhausted all the strength in his hands before they were halfway. Arheled seemed to realise this, for he stuck out a long stick from one hand. Forest grasped it and found himself whirled aloft to sit on Arheled’s shoulders. In this manner they made it to the top. Arheled pressed them against the side of a protruding turret. Dog-men were pacing the walls, stopping now and again to bark laughter at the sneezing pair down at the gate. But they passed the two intruders as if they wore Elven-cloaks. Slipping along under the battlements, they followed in the footsteps of one patrol until a stair appeared, descending the inside of the wall. It had no rail and was very narrow, made of great bars of rock built into the wall. At the bottom they crouched under the stair and looked around. Dog-men were everywhere, in armour and out of armour, doing all the tasks that a castle needs done to keep it going. On the far side of a courtyard rose the great door to the donjon. “We need a diversion.” murmered Arheled. One hand glowed blue. He opened it to disclose a firecracker. Standing up he tossed it in the air. It sailed up and over the court—and then went off, far to the right, in a blinding flash and a fountain of blue and white sparks. The whole castle broke into an uproar. All the dogs on the wall leaned out, looking for an outside attack. All the dogs down below milled around, making a beeline for the firework. Arheled and Forest slipped across easily in the confusion. Arheled did not, as Forest expected, bolt right in the door. He turned left and followed the donjon wall for some ways, until he reached a small grate. His hand glowed and the grate came out neat as a pin. Forest, at his motion, crawled in first, dropping down into a stone room, and Arheled followed, slipping the grate back. They were in a stone cell. A slab provided a bed, a reeking pail the toilet, and chained to the bed was a man in rags. He lifted his eyes and Forest gasped: it was Ronnie’s face. “How’d you get in here?” Forest demanded. “You’re—Forest.” said Ronnie slowly. “So they got you too, huh? The dogs catch everyone in the end.” He coughed. “Who’d have thought it? Ronnie Wendy ending his days in a medieval dungeon, dying from dungeon-fever.” “We’ve got to set him free!” pleaded Forest. Arheled merely looked at him and said nothing. “What’s wrong with you?! Cut his chains or something!” “I told you already, Forest, that we are inside yourself.” answered Arheled. “You see people in the outside world, and you form ideas of them, a mental image of who they are and what they’re like. But are they the real people?” He sighed and pulled the chains apart like taffy. “And more importantly, are they hostile? But if you insist…we do need some information. I could never have entered that window if you hadn’t first.” He turned to Ronnie Wendy. “Where is the treasure of this castle?” Ronnie pointed up. “The castle has no basement.” he said. “It only goes up. Take me with you. I know the way.” “Go in front of me.” said Arheled. “Forest will lead. Tell him the way.” They opened the cell door—after Arheled touched it—and came out into a tomb-like hall of plain stone. Ronnie took them to a stair in the corner of a sharp turn. It wound up for some way inside a turret and then ended in a conical attic. And that attic was filled with dogs. “Oh snapplepops.” whispered Ronnie. They beat it back down the stairs, dog-men in full pursuit. One or two had crossbows. They reached the hall and raced down it. The crossbow-dogs held their pieces to their shoulders and released glowing red bolts. Arheled held up his cloak, but they shore right through it and howled onward. ''“Duck!” Arheled roared. Ronnie threw himself in front of Forest. All the bolts entered his body. He shuddered convulsively and fell slowly on his face. Arheled, glowing a blinding blue, threw more silver dust at the dogs, and grabbed Forest, who was staring in numb shock at Ronnie. “Run, Forest!” he hollored. “But Ronnie—he’s—“ “That isn’t Ronnie,” Arheled snapped as they raced up another stair. “It’s your idea of Ronnie. Now use those eyes of yours! I feel there’s a secret stair here, but this far in my eyes are dimming and my power is reduced to magic tricks.” He gestured behind them, where the echo of sneezing dogs came hollow to their ears. Forest frowned. His eyes flashed for a brief second with a green spark as he gazed around. They mounted more slowly now, and came to the top: another dead end, this one in a long dusty room lined with unused weapons of every shape and kind. “They’re all dead ends.” he said. “Every stair in this castle stops at the second floor.” “I know that.” said Arheled testily. “Can you see the hidden stair?” “Ronnie.” said Forest slowly. “He knew the way. It’s at the first stair.” Arheled drew his sword. The edges flickered a queer blue. “I’ll clear a path.” They passed among the sneezing dogs without incident and mounted the turret-stair, Forest gazing sharply around. The green spark in his eyes was a steady glow. He paused at the top. Four unharmed and unsneezing dogs, playing cards at the back, suddenly sat up and sniffed. Arheled stepped forward. The dogs jumped up with startled yelps and drew short swords, cards flying every which way. Like oiled lightning the Warden of the Road attacked, turning so fast he was catching and parrying two attackers at once, his sword flicking about in circles of fire. The other two, hampered by their companions, tried to get in a blow here or there, but Arheled was too fast. One sweep of his sword sent a dog’s head flying; the backstab buried his blade half-deep in the second dog’s breastplate; his two opponents taken care of, Arheled pulled out the sword in time to parry the third dog, and in a single lunge cut off both the sword arm and the leg underneath it. Ducking the furious sweep of the fourth dog, Arheled swung so hard he nearly clove the last dog in two. While the battle was raging, Forest peered closer at the sloping walls of the conical chamber. He saw it, all at once, upright like a gable, and it was held shut by chains of steel. Slowly Forest drew the sword of the Soldier’s Tower, and the blade now burned not blue but forest-green. He did not remember when it had appeared upon him. The tempered links split like butter at his blows. The door swung open. Up the staircase mounted Forest, Arheled behind him walking backward in case of assault from below. The stairs were fluted in grooves, whether wood or some aged soft stone he could not tell. They passed doors on both sides, some plain, some ornate with carved figures that watched them pass with hostile but silent eyes. All of them were webbed with dusty cobs from long-dead spiders and seemed to have been unused in ages. The grooves in the stairs were damp now. Still on they climbed, and the doors grew more elaborate, and more ancient, some of cast iron eaten purple-red with pitted rust until great holes gaped in them, some of wood black and warped apart with age. Yet the carvings were unaffected by time or rot, staring with living eyes that moved to follow them. The grooves were full now of a trickling dark liquid, and flies buzzed about them, and a thin, abominable smell came up from them. Like blood. Then the stair ended at a dusty door of rough wood, so closely fitted and bound with black iron as to be solid as a wall. Forest tugged and yanked, but he could not budge the door. “Is it here, what we seek?” he asked. Arheled shook his head. “I think we have yet deeper to go,” he answered, “but first you must open up that door.” Forest hewed at it with his sword. “That is not going to open it.” said Arheled. “But this will.” He held up a paintbrush and a box of paints. As if in a dream Forest took the brush and opened the paints and the little jar of solvent for cleaning the brush between colors. The brush raced in swift, simple strokes over the aged surface. Slowly there grew upon the door, the figure of a white Tree. It’s flowers were like lily-roses of silver, and its’ leaves were dark as laurel; the wood was white and gleaming with a radiance of silver, and silver dripped from the blossoms in a rain of light. On that rough sawn surface it held none of the detail he would have liked to give it, but there was in it a beauty and glory beyond anything Forest had anticipated. The door swung open. Inwards it swung, silent as night, and beyond was only a dark green gloom. Forest stepped into the forest that lay beyond, and Arheled followed. Behind them door and stair vanished into mist. Hemlocks and pines, spruces and firs, all turned their dark trunks and looked at them. They had faces growing out of their boles, and every face had eyes of blue flame. From every needled branch sprang a bladelike flame, spinning and whirling like swords. Swift as arms the branches darted down, and out of them ten hundred blades of fire rayed upon Forest and Arheled. Shields of green light slammed into place around them. Forest wasn’t even aware of ordering them to form. He was angry now, angry at all these interruptions, these guardians for stopping him, for keeping him from what was his. He strode through the trees, blades of fire bounding off the shields. “Get out of my way.” '' he said. Out of his sword lightning bolts of green fire exploded. Thunderclaps shook the forest. Trees flew up like bombs. A hail of green embers fell around them. The trees drew back, hissing with rage, but wary; and behind Forest walked Arheled, all luminous blue, bending warning looks upon the trees. Before them stood the queer arch-tree of Knapp Hill, like two legs of wood over a gap; but between them was, not air, but a door of stone. Forest walked up to the door and sent it up in pieces. “Hurry!” Arheled shouted, looking at the forest around them. “You know what we are seeking. That room is one that you alone can enter. Hurry! The forest is roused!” Forest leaped into the room. The sword of the Tower became green mist in his hands and blew away. And there he stood, rooted, his mouth partly open. “Hi, sweetie,” smiled Mrs. Lake, looking up from the kitchen table of the house on Wintergreen Island. She wore her old apron and was spooning pudding into dishes. Two dishes. “Aren’t you hungry?” she said, a little eagerly, still smiling. “It’s banana-vanilla. Your favorite.” Forest still said nothing, but his eyes were roaming the shelves. There was the spice rack. There was the cereal, the flour, sugar and cake mixes. There were the cans. He glanced at them and passed on. They were not what he was looking for. “Come sit down, honey.” said Mrs. Lake, as if he was five. “Don’t you want this nice pudding?” “You’re not giving Bell any?” said Forest. “Bell? Who’s Bell? Sweetie, are you sure you’re all right?” There was a green flicker in Forest’s eyes. It wasn’t on the shelves. He scanned the rest of the familiar room. The cupboard just behind Mom was closed. He made his way around the kitchen table. “Oh, no you don’t, sweetie,” laughed Mom, getting between him and the cupboard. “I’ve got a surprise for you in there. You can’t peek until after your party.” “Mom never throws parties for me.” said Forest. “She knows I don’t like them.” “What do you mean, '' Mom? Who’s this ‘Mom’ person? I’m right here in front of you.” Forest bent his flaming eyes on her. The green light burned like candles. “Are you going to stand out of my way? Or must I thrust you out of it?” “How dare you talk like that to your own mother…!”'' “You are not my mother''.” said Forest. Green light seethed out of his head like glowing fog. “''I can see you.” Walls and kitchen began to ripple as the thing that looked like his mother threw her arms around him. “Forest, Forest—sweetie—honey—I love you—hold me—hold me—“ she cried. He struggled. Her grip was terrifyingly strong, and out of her arms heat began to rise, and Forest gasped with pain as his skin bubbled with burns. She crooned on, but the crooning was ever more horrible, and still she clasped him with her burning arms as he struggled fruitlessly. “ ‘''Mother’, I call down the curse upon you I refused to call upon my own and real mother!” Forest shouted, fury building to a peak in him. He was no longer burnt, he was burning green, and she that held him could no longer restrain him as he reeled forward, dragging her shrivelling form, toward the closed cupboard. Behind him came a flashing light as if blue fires were erupting, and he heard dim and faint the great voice of Arheled as he battled the trees. His own strength was failing. He gripped the cupboard door, shocked to observe as he did that his arm was green and withering up, and pulled it open. Inside there was only one item. A little matchbox train he had played with when he was six, wound by clockwork: a red locomotive, with yellow wheels, and a blue front and cowcatcher. His head was beginning to swim. The monster that was draining his life along with hers gave a choked gargle. The blue reflections of Arheled’s last stand winked out and his voice ceased. The world was growing dim in his eyes. With a last effort he closed his hands over the little engine, before all sight faded. Andy Engine, that was the name. Andy Engine was what he had called it. How could he have forgotten? Arheled’s hand unclenched from Forest’s face. So long had it gripped that marks were pressed into Forest’s skin. Forest gasped and opened his eyes. Scars like burning lashes were fading from the Warden’s face. Drawn by the great cry Forest had given in his final throes, Bell raced out the back door and stopped dead. “Tell me, Forest, do you remember her now?” said Arheled. Forest gave a sort of duck of his head. His eyes had a blank, stunned expression. “Who is she?” “Bell-mell.” murmered Forest. Faintly he was aware of a convulsive start from Bell, but that wasn’t surprising; she had gotten really annoyed at that name and he used to tease her with it unmercifully. “She’s my sister. We grew up together.” “And do you still hate your sister?” Forest shook his head, slowly. The ruined painting seemed so…distant, now. “Then what do you say to her?” Forest turned around and met Bell’s eyes, and then lowered his, feeling both abashed and yet far closer to this girl, no longer just a friend but old playmate and sister, who he had grown up with. “You’re forgiven.” he mumbled. “And I really am sorry.” said Bell. A mischievous look came over her face. “But if you ever call me Bell-mell again I’m throwing another bucket at you.” “You remember, too?” said Forest. “The spell the Enemy put on you is broken.” said Arheled wearily. “Now if you two can keep from killing each other for half an hour, I’m going home to get some rest. I’m not as young as you are.” For some reason this remark struck them as hysterically funny. “It is good that they can laugh.” murmered Arheled, looking out over the lake. “With all things sloping ever more steeply to some unseen end, and such bulwarks as I can raise standing like sand castles, it is good that they can laugh without fear or care.” Forest was staring at Arheled in wary silence, no longer laughing. “You heard?” said Arheled wryly. “I do not often talk to myself. With the Father of Dragons, who just a few months previous could be sent skidding out of a house by the mere name of the Road, suddenly able to seal the Lost Caves of Colebrook so that not only can Wild not escape, but Arheled not enter; it is no wonder my mood is bleak. But come, Forest, do not despair. Chaos is not yet the Morgoth.” Back to Arheled